


Functional Groups

by alovelylittlescandal



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: Angst, Brain Damage, Canon Compliant, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-24
Updated: 2015-10-24
Packaged: 2018-04-27 21:52:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5065690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alovelylittlescandal/pseuds/alovelylittlescandal
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In the spaces between what he says and what he thinks, Fitz simmers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Functional Groups

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this after I (finally) watched the first two episodes of AOS' second season. It really bothered me, the way they treated Fitz. This came out of it.

Fitz knows things. He knows that Faraday’s Constant is 96485.33289(59) C mol−1. He knows that if you react a ketone with an alkyl halide, you can form a carboxyl group in the presence of water. He knows that if you look at the valleys and peaks of a NMR spectrum for an unknown compound, you can discover the identity.  

He knows that ‘th’ is made with a little pressure of his tongue on the back of the teeth, that it is the hardest sound to make in the English language. He knows that the grey myelinated axons in the cortical layer of his temporal lobe were damaged. Irreparably.

He knows a loyalty that transcends words, that is greater and more powerful than any Newtonian force in physics. He knows he has stared at the face of certain death, if only to save someone else.

 He knows the startling depth of a woman’s love.

 Fitz has accumulated these things and all other things, but only a fraction has passed his lips. There is a dam inside of him, with the current swirling and building, unable to articulate any of it.   Left with _um_ and silence in the place of ‘hyperfluctuating trans-dimensional cooling coil.’

 The team treats him with the careful, unbreakable masks of people who have lost everything, when it really wasn’t theirs to have at all. They have lost their genius and their answer to every equation but he can’t mourn very much for them because he has lost his friends.

He has lost Skye’s joking comments, May’s inscrutable poker face, Trip’s effortless calm. Ward.

They are there with him every day, but it is not how he needs them to be. They are demanding, they are taking and taking, pinching pieces away from him like fingers from dough. Every time he fails to deliver, they step further away. They treat him like he has no idea what is going on, but he knows. He knows.

This embarrasses him. It frustrates him with they stare at him with sympathy, when they are on him with expectations that cannot be met, when they treat him like he has lost IQ points instead of his voice. And so he stays in the lab because at least Simmons will understand him, at least Simmons won’t push him away, will find the gaps and pinch them closed with her gentle caring fingers.

Simmons, who puts her hand on his shoulder. Simmons who gives him the Imitrex for his new blindingly painful migraines that curl the world into fire, that keep him from thinking anything at all.  Simmons, who curls around him at night in his bunk so he is never ever alone.

Simmons, who is gone.

He knows this even as he sees her standing next to him when he speaks to Mack. He knows this even as he listens to her breathe, deep in the midnight dark of an empty lab.

He knows she left because of him.

And even if Fiz knows why, he doesn’t really, because he had died for her. He had put himself in the pathway of cold black water for Simmons, and if it was hard for her to watch, it was even harder for him to live it. He would have stayed, if it had been her. You don’t leave the ones you love. You don’t change the status quo.

They had been linked together, and she had broken that bond as surely as any exothermic reaction. And there would be no repairing it, because Simmons was nowhere for him to be found and all he had to give her was _um_ and silence.

He knows that the functional groups of a carbon molecule are responsible for the chemistry, for what kind of reactions can happen. Without the functional group, you have nothing at all.

He knows this.

But he cannot say it.


End file.
